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That's not really going to give you a taste for what it's like to "do" COBOL in a real-world scenario. Realistically, no one is running COBOL on a modern Linux
by xienze 7y ago
That's not really going to give you a taste for what it's like to "do" COBOL in a real-world scenario. Realistically, no one is running COBOL on a modern Linux. They're running it on something like z/OS and there is so much utterly bizarre and incredibly tedious stuff you have to deal with on those mainframe OS's that you'll run away screaming. And that's not even mentioning the code itself, written over several decades and likely not well documented.
When I worked at IBM not TOO long ago there were times when I had to fix a bug in WebSphere that only manifested on z/OS or zLinux and those were hands down the hardest bugs to fix. And that was a relatively modern codebase, by mainframe standards.
- sigjuice 7y agoMy way of learning and exploring something new (to me) is to ignore the bizarre and tedious system specific stuff that you mention. I have never even seen COBOL code before. Toy programs that I can easily run on my own computer are more than enough to satisfy my casual (and short-lived) curiosity.
- StudyAnimal 7y agohttps://kurthaeusler.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/learning-the-mainframe/ https://kurthaeusler.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/learning-the-m...
- bencollier49 7y agoThat's not entirely true, a lot of people have migrated across to, for example, Microfocus COBOL, which runs on Linux and Windows.
- NikolaNovak 7y agoIt is true that a lot of legacy COBOL apps are on mainframe. However, not all - I've personally been dealing peripherally with COBOL on UNIX/Linux via IBM or MicroFocus compilers for decades - and it even works on Windows :-O e.g. https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/products/net-express-server-express/overview https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/products/net-express-server... https://www.ibm.com/ca-en/marketplace/cobol-compiler-aix https://www.ibm.com/ca-en/marketplace/cobol-compiler-aix